A Baby Business

When Allyson Downey ’10 was expecting, she got some unexpected inspiration. As a mother-to-be, Downey felt unprepared for the decisions ahead: What diaper brand should I pick? What pacifiers and stroller? So, naturally, she reached out to her friends for advice. In the process, a business idea was born. Using Facebook as a platform, Downey thought, she could create a site for parents to share information about baby products with friends.

Inspired, she felt an urgency to act. “I had this enormous fear,” says Downey, “that someone would steal the concept, and I’d miss out on the chance to build this thing I really believed in.” But a friend and fellow entrepreneur advised her that it was the execution that mattered most. “He was right,” she says. After months of planning and surveying, Downey and her partners launched weeSpring.com in December and, to date, they have over 15,000 product reviews.